


You and I will Dance with Death

by NoFicByHalves



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider VI: Angel of Darkness
Genre: But nobody important is dead, Don't Judge Me, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, I mean Lara and Kurtis are still both assholes, Kurtis Lives, Post-AOD, Short One Shot, The Shit That Went Down In Cappadocia (TM), The Tomb Raider Tag Needs More Lux Raider, assholes in love, i love these two okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5343998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoFicByHalves/pseuds/NoFicByHalves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet in March.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and I will Dance with Death

**Author's Note:**

> First thing on AO3, and it's Lux Raider. No one is surprised by this, are they...  
> Short, oneshot-y thing that's almost cute except my OTP is strange around the edges.

They meet in March.

She was broken and angry. Her purpose had pulled out from under her feet and still feeling the betrayal of it all. She's lost and trying to reconcile her aimlessness with her fear. Vengeance and curiosity both brought her here, but she doubts whether either are worth pursuing, for a man who both shaped and destroyed her.

He's bitter and conflicted, resigned to dying for a cause he has no love for. He wanted justice for a father he never saw eye-to-eye with, but there was no one living to face the madman. Only him, a singular runaway with too much attitude and too little discipline.

(It takes them over twenty-four hours and a thousand kilometers to properly introduce themselves, but somehow it's worth more that way.)

They speak first deep in enemy territory, unsure whether to trust one another, but the bodies on the floor around them make it clear that there is no other option. When they decide to divide and conquer, the enemy is watching, and it gets him captured. It barely takes her thirty seconds to give up her only leverage for his life. He returns the favor and stays behind to fight the abomination unleashed in the room.

(They both agree that they made stupid decisions that day and move on.)

The fight is long and hard, but vengeance is finally hers. Explosions rattle the building as she staggers back to him. She finds his weapon and it leads her where he lies, half-conscious, on the floor, a gaping wound in his stomach. It takes hours to drag him outside and to a hospital, and weeks until they finally discuss what happened, realizing that the war is far from over.

(He told her to go back to her cozy home where it was safe. She laughed and asked what kind of semi-automatic he preferred.)

They spend the better part of April running across Europe with fake names and too little weaponry, trying to put together a plan. They create a language of their own, with inside jokes and biting sarcasm and codes that even the nephilim can't break.

(He calls her 'darling', he thinks they're being followed. She loops her arm through his and smiles adoringly, she knows a safe place that they can sleep. She threatens to rip off his arms and feed them to him... that means exactly what she says, actually.)

They're dancing with death every day, and yet they've never felt more alive.

They fall in love, and it's not really a surprise to either of them.

It isn't the nice kind of love, the kind where they say kind things and kiss and fall asleep in each others' arms, where they stay together forever and ever, maybe get married or have children, and grow old together. Theirs is the kind of love that means 'you are my weakness' and almost makes them wish they never met. It's a strange balance between wanting to protect the other and wanting to strangle them, because they know that protection is not what they need, it's someone covering their ass when they decide to do something dumb and spectacular.

(She tells him he's an idiot when she stitches him up after a firefight, and they both know there's an 'I love you' in there somewhere, but they can't be bothered to fish it out.)

Somehow they survive this mess. He's achy and bloodstained and his mind is a little fragmented, and she's got more injuries than she'd like to count and is about to keel over from exhaustion, but they're alive and they're healing.

(They drag themselves back to the city where they first ran into each other, because it seems like an appropriate way to end this roadtrip from hell.)

He tells her to go back home to her tombs and her dusty old books with what could almost be a fond smile. She calls him an ass and advises him not to get himself killed while she's gone.

(She never believed in fairy-tale endings, but part of her wants to, to turn around and ask him to stay or wishes that he would call her back. Neither of them do.)

She's about to board the plane home, to return to endless aimless hours and too many people asking if she's alright, when her phone chimes with a text message from an unknown number. ' _just in case_ ,' it reads.

(She knows it's him, just like she knows he'd laugh at her naming him 'Mysterious Stranger' in her phone contacts.)

She smiles, responding ' _Of course_ ', and everything feels a bit more bearable. The past few months weren't a strange fever dream. They saved the world. They _lived_. They will see each other again someday. There will be a next adventure.

(It isn't 'happily ever after', but nothing ordinary has ever suited either of them anyway.)


End file.
